MTA Repairs May Cost $43B Over Next Five Years

MTA

NEW YORK CITY - The State's comptroller has released a report that details a possible MTA capital budget of $43 billion to go toward repairs over the next five years.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is reportedly putting together a capital budget for 2025-2029 and will be released in September, according to Crain’s New York. The current MTA capital budget is $51.5 billion and directs 80% to state-of-good-repair work. Now, the state’s comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, projects the MTA will need around $43 billion for capital repairs over the next five years.

DiNapoli said, “The list of repairs and upgrades needed in our regional transit systems can seem endless, but funds are limited. . . As the MTA prepares its next capital plan and sets priorities for work, it should remain focused on riders’ experience by improving safety, reliability and frequency of service.”

The work would go toward modernizing “train signals, aging subway cars and [renovating] Grand Central Terminal’s 110-year-old train shed.” DiNapoli’s report outlines the infrastructure work that would be needed to make the system “more resilient to extreme weather.” The subway system in New York is over a century old and runs more than “6,500 subway cars, 39% of which are more than 30 years old.”

In 2013, the MTA estimated that it would spend (an inflation-adjusted) $1.6 billion through 2024 on shop and yard work. However, since that time, “only $315 million of work has been completed on those assets, with another $187 million committed.” CEO Janne Lieber has commented that the next capital budget may reveal a higher budget because of inflation.

According to the report, the current capital budget relies on “revenue from congestion pricing, a new toll on motorists driving into Manhattan’s central business district.” Borrowing against those receipts, the transit agency will raise $15 billion. There are current lawsuits that may delay this plan, and the MTA has warned these kinds of delays may put the entire system at risk.